Chapter 28 The Simplicity of Touch #3
“Meticulously,” Death agreed, something like grudging respect coloring his tone. “The runes, the chains, the binding words—all prepared in advance. As if he’d been studying how to trap a god for years.” A soft, humorless laugh drifted through the darkness. “Which, of course, he had.”
His hand turned slightly, the scars catching the light from a different angle.
“Aeldrin quickly discovered that even with my power dampened, my touch retained certain... qualities.” The word hung between us, pregnant with meaning.
“The first guard who laid hands on me withered where he stood, his life force pouring into me before he could draw another breath. Even after that, dozens lost their lives at my touch, at your father’s orders to restrain me. ”
A chill ran down my spine at the casual mention of such devastating power. “But my father—“
“Cleverly avoided touching my skin directly,” Death finished. “Hence the chains. Many, many chains, wrapped around every inch of me they could manage. It took a dozen men to bind me, and most did not survive the process.” His voice carried no remorse, only a detached recounting of facts.
I stared at the hand extending through the bars—the hand that had held mine last night, that had offered comfort when I needed it most. This same hand had killed with a touch, had drawn life from flesh as easily as drawing water from a well.
“We’ve touched,” I whispered. “More than once.”
“We have.”
“Why didn’t you harm me?” The question trembled on my lips, both fearful and curious.
Death was silent for a long moment.
“I did not want to.”
I should have stepped away after that. Should have retreated to the far corner of my cell, kept my distance from this being of unfathomable power and unknown intentions. Instead, I found myself leaning closer, drawn by a need I couldn’t articulate.
A god who could kill with a touch had chosen not to harm me. Had chosen, instead, to offer comfort when I was at my lowest. Me, the daughter of his capturer, his torturer.
And I wanted to touch him still.
Slowly, deliberately, I extended both hands toward his. My movements were cautious, giving him every opportunity to withdraw, but he remained still, watching as my fingers hovered above his palm.
My heart thundered in my chest, a wild rhythm that seemed to echo off the stone walls. Fear mingled with something else—a pull toward this being of power that defied all reason. He was dangerous. Lethal. Divine. And yet...
With a courage born perhaps of foolishness or desperation, I placed my hands on either side of his, cradling it between my own.
Death went utterly still, as if my touch had turned him to stone, before a tremor passed through him, so slight I might have imagined it. But his hand remained warm and solid between mine, neither withering my flesh nor pulling at my life force.
Emboldened by his stillness, I allowed my fingers to explore the terrain of his skin, tracing the raised lines of scars, the calluses that spoke of weapons wielded and battles fought. His hand dwarfed mine, powerful enough to crush bone, yet it remained gentle within my grasp.
“Most mortals would be terrified to touch me,” Death said, his voice rougher than before. “As are many gods.”
My fingertip traced a particularly deep scar that ran from his wrist to the base of his middle finger. “Should I be?” I asked, looking up as if I could see his face through the darkness and stone between us. “Terrified, that is.”
Silence stretched between us, his hand motionless beneath my exploration. Finally, he spoke, his voice so low I had to strain to hear it.
“No,” he said. “Not you.”
I resumed my careful exploration, fingers moving to his calluses—the hardened skin at the base of each finger, along the edge of his palm, between thumb and forefinger.
These weren’t the calluses of a laborer or craftsman, but of a warrior.
Someone who had held weapons, wielded them with deadly precision over centuries.
His fingers curled slightly, adjusting to the pressure of my touch. The chains at his wrist clinked softly with the movement.
I wanted to memorize the texture of his skin, the placement of each scar, the slight roughness of his knuckles. This simple touch felt more intimate than anything I had experienced before, even more than the pleasure Valen had forced upon me.
“Do gods have souls?” I whispered, dragging my fingertips along the curve of his thumb.
His hand remained steady in mine, but I sensed a subtle tension ripple through him at my question. For several heartbeats, he said nothing, and I wondered if I had crossed some invisible boundary.
“No,” he said simply. Then, after another pause, “Gods are power, will, and eternity, born of raw creation. There is no soul within us.”
I waited, sensing there was more he wished to say. His palm pressed into my ministrations, a gesture that seemed almost unconscious.
“Mortal emotions are anchored in your souls,” he continued.
“They rise and fall like tides, washing through you, changing you, before receding again. They shape you, leave impressions like footprints in wet sand.” His fingers curled slightly around mine, a gentle pressure that felt almost like emphasis.
“Divinity has no such anchor, without souls.”
I frowned, trying to understand. “Are you saying gods feel less than mortals?”
“Not less,” he corrected. “Not more, either. Just… different.” His thumb brushed against my forefinger, the gesture so gentle it might have been accidental. “Divine emotion is... deeper. More intrinsic. Like currents in the ocean’s deepest trench, where even light never dares to go.”
“That sounds... lonely,” I whispered, surprised by my own assessment.
“It can be,” Death agreed, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate through his hand into mine.
“When a god feels rage, it is not the hot flash of anger a mortal experiences. It is an endless, perfect rage that could burn for millennia without diminishing.” His voice dropped lower.
“When we love… it is all-consuming. It becomes the foundation of our very existence. Not a feeling that comes and goes, but the bedrock upon which everything else is built.”
The force of his words settled over me, heavy with implication. I traced another scar, this one curved like a crescent moon across his palm, while processing what he’d revealed.
“Have you ever loved?” The question escaped before I could consider its wisdom.
His hand went perfectly still beneath mine. The silence stretched so long I began to wonder if he would answer at all. When he finally spoke, his voice carried a note I’d never heard before—something raw and unguarded.
“No.”
The single word held such profound loss that I felt it like a physical ache in my chest. I wanted to ask more, but something in the quality of his silence warned me away from pressing further.
Instead, I shared a vulnerability of my own.
“I don’t believe I have the capacity to love,” I whispered, the confession emerging from some deep, wounded place within me.
“Not the way others do.” My fingers continued their gentle tracing, following another scar that ran from his wrist toward his forearm.
“I love my sister, Lysa. And my friend, Isolde. But that’s different. ”
Death remained motionless, allowing my touch, my words, without interruption.
“I’ve never felt that soul-deep, tear-down-the-world kind of love that poets write about.” My voice grew softer still, almost lost beneath the distant drip of water. “Even when I took men to my bed, it was just... a way to feel something. To be wanted, if only for a moment.”
“You underestimate the capabilities of your mortal soul,” Death said, his voice equally soft but carrying a certainty that made my fingers pause in their exploration.
“Maybe,” I whispered back. “Or maybe there is something broken inside me. Something that is not soft enough to love.”
I felt a sudden weariness, a burning behind my eyes as the day’s tension and uncertainty finally took their toll. Not wanting to bother him for longer than welcome, my hands began to withdraw, pulling back toward my own cell, my own isolation.
But before I could retreat fully, his fingers closed around mine—not grasping or restraining, but holding with a gentleness that belied the strength I knew lay within that grip.
Without another word, his fingers adjusted their position, sliding between mine until our hands were properly interlaced. Palm to palm, finger to finger, a perfect joining across the boundary that separated god from mortal, cell from cell.
The intimacy of the gesture struck me with unexpected force. This wasn’t the desperate clutching of the previous night, the seeking of comfort amid violation and pain. This was deliberate, measured—a connection chosen rather than needed.
He didn’t speak again. Didn’t explain himself or justify the continued contact.
Didn’t ask me to stay, though his touch did that without words.
Instead, he simply held my hand in his, his thumb occasionally brushing across my knuckles in a gesture that felt almost absentminded, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for Death to stroke the hand of a mortal woman in a dungeon beneath her conquered palace.